


The Sidewalk Has Ended

by ahestele



Category: Hanson
Genre: Gen, incest theme
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-26
Updated: 2014-05-26
Packaged: 2018-01-26 14:08:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1691069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ahestele/pseuds/ahestele
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ike didn’t fuck or fuck with Taylors if he could help it. He didn’t trust them. He stuck to Zacs from around his year model because the one time he’d been sucked off by one of himselves it had wigged him out a little.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sidewalk Has Ended

**Author's Note:**

> I'm posting for archival purposes and because I'd almost forgotten about this story. 
> 
> Mature themes and language. Ike/Taylor pre-slash  
> For reet, the most supportive beta I ever had, and the only reason this writing doesn't read like I approached grammar with my feet. I don’t know what I would have done without her. For lacetrees8536 who sent such lovely feedback and reminded me that once these voices whispered to me in the clearest tones. 
> 
> Also, I cannot claim the brilliance of this idea for myself. I owe massive influence to Sandy the Older's amazing NSYNC meta fic http://suitableforframing.mediawood.net/slashdorm.htm- As Lucid as Hell.
> 
> I hope that if she ever stumbles upon this, that she will take the acknowledgement for the admiration with which it is intended.
> 
> Title paraphrased from Shel Silverstein.

He really wished they wouldn’t make any more of the 97 Taylors. Four had been broken so far and the last one seemed to be okay, then took a pair of scissors and cut off all his hair after an Assignment. It took two 2002 Isaacs and a 2005 Zac to hold him down while they pried the scissors out of his fingers. For a kid, he really kicked their asses, and one of the Isaacs needed stitches, which really pissed off the TPTB. He figured they deserved it for not researching their product well enough; the 97 models could roller blade, mountain climb, and perform through a two hour concert. They were wiry little fuckers.

Still, they kept churning them out because they were the most popular model. Them and the 2002 Zac with the long hair. He kept waiting for the older model Taylor to get popular. He read that 2002 Taylor right before he married the wife had been real popular, but no. Jailbait, everywhere jailbait, and now he’d gotten one for a roommate. There were so many they couldn’t room them only with other jailbait like they were supposed to - minors with minors.

He was glad to be only a 2005 Isaac. His last Assignment had been months ago, a forty-three year old woman who’d only wanted to have dinner and talk about the band while he held her hand. He’d kind of hoped she’d wanted sex; she was attractive. He should have known from the modest but clean apartment and the late model Toyota in the garage that she’d probably saved up a long time for him and The Gold Option amounted to over a year’s wages, or something. It was alright; he’d just been hoping to get off before his privacy at The Compound went away.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
_Old report: A secret human cloning laboratory run by Clonaid is said to be based in the Nevada desert, with the first human cloned baby expected to be born in 2001. The plan is that the human cloning experiment will produce a replacement copy of a 10 month old girl who died last year._

_Clonaid says five British couples, including two pairs of homosexual men have asked to be cloned. Peter and Ildako Blackburn, computer consultants from Huntingdon Cambrisdgeshire UK have expressed an interest in human cloning as an alternative infertility treatment but will not say if they are in touch with Clonaid. (Source Sunday Times 5 November 2000)_

_Clonaid is registered in the Bahamas and was founded by the Raelian movement who claim more than 50,000 members in 85 countries. Brigitte Boiselier is a 44 year old French biochemist who often speaks for Clonaid as scientific director. (Some spell her name incorrectly as Boisellier) She says that Clonaid will shift from animal cloning to human cloning experiments in January 2001, hoping for the first human cloning pregnancies by February._

_More than 50 surrogate mothers have been selected to carry the human cloned foetuses throughout pregnancy, including Brigitte Boisellier's own 22 year old daughter, Marina Cocolios._  
_Raelians believe that humans are all cloned from alien scientists who visited earth. The movement was started by Claude Vorilhorn, following a spiritual experience in 1973. He changed his name to Rael and founded the cult._

_America has no laws preventing human cloning research, unlike the UK, although no public funding is available._

http://www.globalchange.com/clonaid.htm

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

T6945 showed up during Quiet Time and Ike looked up to see one of the flunkies in the white coats standing in the doorway next to a 97 clutching his clothes and a backpack to his chest with both thin arms. The knuckles of his hands were white but the face showed nothing. Crafty little shits these ones. He just knew if this one freaked out after an Assignment, he was going to defend himself, and if it meant the Refurbishing Room so be it. His life might be empty but he wasn’t stupid.

“Hello, I4037.” The flunkie said, one hand on the 97s shoulder in what was supposed to be a friendly gesture. It just looked menacing because all those models were so damn small and the flunkie pushed six feet and his belly strained the buttons of the lab coat. A pair of small glasses sat abandoned on his round face in front of his beady little eyes. He wondered if ‘nerdy and ugly’ was on the job list criteria.

“Hey.” He said.

“This is T6945. He’ll be your roommate for now.” The number was on the simple baby blue cotton t-shirt that all the T’s wore. Isaacs wore muted red and Zacs a deep yellow.

“Hey,” he said to the kid who nodded at him and gave the flunkie a sidelong glance like he got the creeps from the guy, too.

“I4037 will help you if you have any questions, alright? Classes start tomorrow.”

“Okay.” The kid tucked a lock of hair behind his left ear with his right hand in the gesture they all seemed to have. It came from that first documentary - a photo shoot. He wondered why they never got more creative. It wasn’t like there wasn’t enough source material.

“Alright. Remember we’re just a call away.”

“I know.” The kid nodded and the flunkie’s huge hand finally let him go.

When flunkie creep finally left went back to his book, but the 97 just stood there.

“That’s your side,” he said without looking up. He’d read the Elmore Leonard a dozen times, but he’d run out of stuff he wanted to read in the library a long time ago, and the 2006 Isaacs kept hogging all the computers in the lab. He didn’t feel like angling for one when all they could do was play SIMS, email each other, and go on ‘safe’ sites with the porn all filtered. He preferred to check out the notebooks only set up to read e-books because hardly anyone ever wanted those. And of course there were the actual books, stacked two rows deep and gathering dust on the shelves in the library. He had his pick of those since the most popular items were comics.

Then, next time he looked up, the 97 had put his stuff at the foot of the bed and sat in the middle with his knees drawn up and both slim arms locked around them. The blue eyes stared at him, a curtain of blond hair framing his face. He didn’t know how they got the hair to be the same length on all of them, just like all the 2005 Isaacs had the same ruffle of dark curls at their crown and the soul patch, and all the 2002 Zacs had the long honey blond hair past their shoulders. Their hair didn’t grow; it just stayed the same, like they were frozen in time. He guessed that was the point.

“What?” he said, not unfriendly.

“How long have you been here?”

He didn’t answer for a long time. There were some questions that just weren’t asked a lot. That was one. Most of them had no idea. Calendars were against the rules.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said, putting his book down. The kid kept staring at him and he sighed. He hated it when they actually had a personality. “I don’t know,” he lied. “A long time.”

The 97 flicked hair out of his face. “Do you like it?”

He almost laughed. _The food’s not bad but there’s no privacy to jerk off_ he almost said but didn’t. That kind of stuff got people written up. More than once got them a demerit and suddenly one morning that bed was empty and you never saw them again. Sometimes you saw it coming; saw the thread of sanity start to unravel in their eyes. But sometimes they were fine. Sometimes they were okay and then they were gone.

“It’s okay,” he said, shrugging and wondered how much bonding they needed to go through before he could get back to his book.

The 97 looked at him some more then lay his chin on his knees and looked away.

Eventually the kid lay down, curled up and facing the wall, and he ignored it.

His last roommate had been a 2005 Zac and they’d gotten along fine. All the 2005 wanted to do was talk about classic rock, spend time in the instrument room banging away at the drums, and jerk off at night when he thought Ike was asleep.

One night after hearing the 2005 shift and muffle his moans, he got out of bed naked, walked over, and finished it for him. He sat at the edge of the bed, pushed the big hand with the calloused fingertips away, and jacked him off quick and strong. The 2005 stuffed the edge of a pillow in his mouth to muffle his screams and came on Ike’s hand. That made Ike really hard, but when the 2005 reached for him Ike stood up and told him to go back to sleep.

Later that week he let the 2005 suck him off.

They did it about once a week and then one morning the 2005 was gone.

He thought he’d be next; that they’d found out. Sex was against the rules, too, but everyone did it. It was like a game but if you got caught it could be bad. ‘Special Friendships’ were okay, though. As far as he could tell, ‘Special Friendships’ included having a ‘best friend’, holding hands, and necking and fucking without getting caught. He personally thought that sent mixed messages, but he guessed they realized that some contact was necessary so they wouldn’t all turn into horny anti-social lunatics.

They never came for him.

He didn’t have Special Friendships. He just fucked sometimes so he wouldn’t forget what it felt like.

The kid had fallen asleep, breathing deeply, like he’d been exhausted.

He listened to the breathing for a while then got up and flipped a blanket over him.

*~*~*~*~*

_Yet it seems clear that some of these concerns, at least, are based on false beliefs about genetic influence and the nature of the individuals that would be produced through cloning. Consider, for instance, the fear that a clone would not be an "individual" but merely a "carbon copy" of someone else -- an automaton of the sort familiar from science fiction. As many scientists have pointed out, a clone would not in fact be an identical copy, but more like a delayed identical twin. And just as identical twins are two separate people -- biologically, psychologically, morally and legally, though not genetically -- so, too, a clone would be a separate person from her non-contemporaneous twin. To think otherwise is to embrace a belief in genetic determinism -- the view that genes determine everything about us, and that environmental factors or the random events in human development are insignificant._

Genetic Encores: The Ethics of Human Cloning  
http://www.puaf.umd.edu/IPPP/tocfall97.htm

*~*~*~*~*

He’d been here ten years, four days, twelve hours, and change. He’d been on 54 Assignments, most of them in the last two years. Something had happened a couple of years ago. A cover band. A greatest hits compilation. Something like that. He’d had twenty roommates. The 2005 Zac lasted the longest, almost nine months. The shortest was two weeks - a 2001 Taylor that lost his shit when the 2003 Zac he’d been ‘Special Friendshipping’ with disappeared. Rumor was they’d been planning an escape. Which just told him there was some fundamental problem with all of those Taylor models anyhow. As far as he could tell the original recombinant DNA must have come from a dumb, pissy, queenie host.

Except this 97 wasn’t any of those things.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

The Kid, Ike had started calling him The Kid in his head, went on his first Assignment a week later. Bastards barely let them catch their breaths.

He remembered the drill: a week of down time including ‘classes’ with titles like ‘Personal Space In Our Space’, ‘ and ‘ Communication and Conflict Resolution’ to name a few; a few content areas, so they’d know what they were talking about if any of the clients got chatty. Most of those were about music and current events up to the year of the model. They were taught by a simulated virtual teacher in front of a holographic desk and Ike had a hard time hearing about Kurt Cobain, Madonna, and the East Coast/West Coast rap rivalry from a guy in a tweed jacket and chinos.

He heard they used to have real teachers but one of them had an inappropriate relationship with a Zac and tried to sneak him out.

He remembered how the constant hum of chatter got to him when he got here, how he wanted to strangle all the 1997 Zacs because they were so damned loud and hyperactive, and how one of the 2001 Taylors gave him attitude when Ike took ‘his’ shower stall. He remembered the shock of walking in on two 1999 Taylors making out in the music room and finding a note under his door from a 2005 Zac asking if he wanted to watch TV together. It took him a few minutes to realize this was code for rubbing all over each other until someone came.

If any of this happened to The Kid, Ike couldn’t tell. This Taylor didn’t act like the other ones. Ike couldn’t remember seeing him laugh once, and he didn’t sit with the other 97s, preferring to edge onto the older kids table, but at the corner, in case anyone told him anything. It was weird.

The 97 left for the Assignment Briefing one Friday afternoon and didn’t come back until late at night.

Ike had snuck a 3 lb. barbell under his bed from the weight room just in case.

The Kid walked in, went straight to the bed and lay down, facing the wall.

*~*~*~*~*

Three nights later he’d woken up and couldn’t get back to sleep. After quietly and considerately jerking off in his hand he reached over to get a tissue.

The Kid was sitting in the middle of his bed watching him, arms around both knees, and Ike nearly screamed from shock. The 97 blinked calmly at him in the dark, which never got really dark because there was a night light and the reflection from the common room outside and Jesus CHRIST he’d almost pissed himself.

Ike stared mutely, heart racing, face flaming in the dark as he blushed. He’d never blushed before, ever. The weird asshole had made him blush.

“I can’t sleep.” The voice was hushed and small in the quiet.

“Too fucking bad.”

A small intake of breath whispered in the night and the 97 lay down and curled away from Ike, a hunched lump on the bed.

He wiped himself down, halfway listening for crying or sobs but the air remained perfectly silent.

“You could ask for meds. To sleep.” His voice sounded loud in the dark and The Kid didn’t answer.

Ike felt like a prick.

It took him a long time to get back to sleep.

*~*~*~*~*~*~

“Do we die?”

He looked across the room at where the 97 sat at the small desk where he was supposed to be studying. The urge to tell him yes, painfully, with torture, was right there and he stopped it. He’d had it with the cryptic stares and the weird silences and the bizarre, stupid unanswerable questions. He wondered what clone maker got stoned and thought it would be hilarious to put a Goth emo gene in this one.

“I don’t know,” he said finally and went back to his book. Angels and Demons by Dan Brown. Big seller back in the day, the book flap said.

“I think we die.” The Kids’ voice was soft.

“Everyone dies,” Ike muttered, flipping a page. He’d lost his place. It’s not like he hadn’t read the book before but that wasn’t the point.

“I can switch places with 5023.” The Kid then said, just as softly, and Ike put down the book.

“What?”

“Switch places. So he can sleep here instead. He’s your friend; I’ve seen you talking.” It was the longest string of words the 97 had ever said that didn’t include a question and Ike stared for a second.

He knew 5023, a beautiful 2004 Taylor who had been giving Ike hints about ‘watching TV’ for awhile. Ike didn’t fuck or fuck with Taylors if he could help it. He didn’t trust them. He stuck to Zacs from around his year model because the one time he’d been sucked off by one of himselves it had wigged him out a little.

And he didn’t _talk_ to 5023 except to politely turn down his invitations.

“Why?” he finally asked because The Kid just kept staring at him from the desk, his mouth scrunched up in a little line, which is how Ike knew he was upset. The 97 had the best poker face Ike had ever seen, including his own. And his was good.

The doe blue eyes looked down then away and the 97 mumbled something.

“What?” Ike said, loud and too irritated, but really. He couldn’t take much more of this.

“Because you don’t like me. And you like him.” The pretty little face looked all upset, and Ike swore he wanted to slap him and hug him both.

“I don’t like him. He wants to fuck me. He probably wants to fuck you. Because he gets off on fucking himself because he’s a crazy, conceited prick.” The words came out in one smooth, matter of fact line before Ike could stop himself, and The Kid stared at him with soft horror all over his face.

Ike had a second of panic. That was an inappropriate as fuck thing to say, especially to one of the younger models. If The Kid repeated it things could be bad. Ike could get taken.

“I do like you,” he tried, and the 97 turned back to the desk shaking his head a little, the sweep of flaxen blond hair swaying. “Hey. I do.” Ike moved closer to the desk, intent on smoothing this out. Working things through. Communicating about a conflict. Whatever those stupid buzz words were they gave them in adjustment classes.

“I was by myself in the room for awhile before you got here. That’s all. I got used to….”

“He said …..”

“ ‘He’ said?” Ike pushed. The 97 wouldn’t look at him and Ike reached and cupped the baby smooth chin in his hand, making their eyes meet. “He said what?”

“He said you didn’t like me. You asked him to switch.”

Motherfucker.

Ike let The Kid’s chin go and they stared at each other a second, a curious light-headed feeling buzzing at the top of Ike’s head. He also seemed to be panting a little and his fists were clenched. It took a minute to realize the sensation as anger. He was angry. No. He was pissed off beyond belief.

“I didn’t ask him to switch.”

“No?” The Kid said in a small voice.

“No.”

The Kid nodded, not looking at him again.

“I like you,” Ike added. That did get him eye contact and a little smile, just a curve of his mouth. It slanted the blue doe eyes a little, and Ike realized with a start that he’d never seen The Kid smile before. Not once.

A strange flutter that wasn't anger happened in his chest.

“Don’t worry about it.”

The Kid nodded and turned back to the desk, not one line of tension still in him.

*~*~*~*~*~*~

5023 was in the bathroom hogging the mirror like always.

Ike stood in the doorway and watched the careful way he fluffed his hair as it framed the blue eyes and long lashes. 5023 had somehow gotten a smaller t-shirt than regulation and it clung to his pecs and abs as the slim waist flowed into tight, low slung jeans. He looked like the gayest thing Ike had ever seen, even if he hadn’t seen that much.

5023 caught his eye in the mirror and smiled, the dimples deepening as Ike walked in, noting that the stalls were empty. Everyone was at dinner jostling for the best tables, so they could then run to the TV room and hog a set for American Idol 75. 5023 usually had his little cadre of hangers on that saved him a spot and gave him their desserts.

5023 turned and rested his palms on the sink, relaxing his shoulders and letting the smooth line of torso bunch up into the ridged spanse of his abs right above the prominent bulge of his crotch.

“Took you long enough.”

Ike agreed.

He walked over and stood close to him meeting the heavy lidded blue eyes that assessed him from under the dark lashes.

Ike touched the tight, flat stomach, saw the muscles quiver and slid the flat of his hand up over a firm chest while the Taylor surged against his hand throwing his head back prettily. It made it easier for Ike to slide his fingers around the smooth play of neck tendons and squeeze. The lazy lust became puzzlement then realization then panic. Ike tightened his hold, felt the stuttering beat of pulse against his palm, and swung him across the bathroom to the wall beside the hand dryers. He slammed his head once, just enough to shut off the rising yells.

He got right in his face, eye to eye, 5023’s stare like wide, startled blue marbles. He thought. Ike had never actually played with marbles.

“Don’t,” Ike whispered. “Ever lie about me again. Don’t ever talk to him again.”

He could see the craftiness come up on the Taylor’s face and he started to laugh around Ike’s hand, a choked sound.

“Oh, it’s like that?”

“Don’t test me.”

“If I have marks I’m turning you in, bitch.”

“Do it.” Ike said calmly. “I’ll tell them about Sev. You remember Sev.”

Sev had been 5023’s roommate last year, a bright-eyed, cheerful 1997 Taylor, model number 6777. 5023 had named him Sev. Ike had seen them kiss once after lights out, and everyone saw the 97 follow 5023 around like a puppy, bringing him a bottle of water, doing his chores for him, hanging onto him like a shadow. After around three months, 5023 got bored and started to ignore him. Sev got bewildered, then hurt, then frantic, which preceded the memorable hair-cutting scissor-wielding ball-smashing meltdown.

5023’s face got cold and closed off. “I didn’t do anything to Sev.”

“We’ll see.” Ike said.

“Don’t fuck with me.”

Ike got nose to nose with him, took in the perfect blue of his eyes and poreless skin like cream. “Don’t worry.” He let the Taylor go with a push against the wall and turned away as 5023 rubbed the red marks on his neck. There wouldn’t be any marks in a few minutes. Probably. Either way, it wasn’t his problem. He meant it about Sev.

“Touch me again and I’ll make you sorry.”

Ike ignored him.

“Things are changing soon. You don’t want to be on my shit list when they do.”

Ike rolled his eyes as he walked out of the bathroom. He wondered if the real Taylor Hanson had ever been that conceited and megalomaniacal. Thank god the primary DNA for his brother seemed to be calmer.

When he got to dinner The Kid sat alone at one end of the older Taylors’ table, picking at his meal. Instead of wandering over to a table of Isaacs near the back, he sat in front of The Kid and knocked their feet companiably under the table, earning himself another ghost of a smile.

A shadow passed over The Kid’s features when 5023 walked past their table and smiled at them, but Ike caught The Kid’s eyes.

“It’ll be ok.”

He didn’t know how wrong he was.

*~*~*~*~*~

The Kid started going out on more Assignments. Ike went out on one, a surprisingly young girl they called a Retro. A Retro was someone who had become obsessed with a defunct singing group. He didn’t get a lot of Retros, not like the Taylors and Zacs. He always got the older women, or men, who finally got enough money to talk to a childhood crush.

She’d paid for the whole deal and her body was firm and unlined, breasts tightening under his mouth. She’d been a virgin. They got a surprising lot of that.

He came twice, once when she gave him passably good head, and she held his hand as he waited for the company car to go back. Her head rested on his shoulder and she wondered aloud what it would be like to have him with her ‘all the time.’ Ike played with her fingers and listened.

Very, very few models ever got ‘Deployed’, where a client paid for them to stay at their residence, or business, or wherever, on a permanent basis, as long as they paid. He had no idea how much it was but knew it was astronomical, and was only available for the over eighteen models. Even the TPTB couldn’t reason away what would really be happening if one of the 97s got an offer for Deployment.

He’d thought for a long time that it would be the best thing to happen, be Deployed, but then he knew better. He’d seen the few models that had gotten Deployed after they got sent back, and they always got sent back because none of them were for sale permanently, ever. The Deployed models were usually always Taylors and all of them had disappeared within a few months of returning. He remembered the lost look on their faces and how hurt they sounded that they’d been returned, like a toy someone had gotten bored with. That was the thing Ike realized: after a while those models forgot that they were just toys. Product. Commodities. They weren’t human and they weren’t real. Forgetting that was what made you screwed up.

The 97 finished his dessert and fiddled with his salad waiting for Ike to finish.

He would never forget, Ike somehow knew. It was in his eyes; depth and incredible loneliness. He’d be ok.

*~*~*~*~*~*

He didn’t know when he realized something was brewing but it started at the back of his head, a constant thrum of tension in the place that seemed to never go away, like an insistent background hum from a broken alarm.

Segregation got more intense than usual, groups of Taylors and Zacs huddled whispering and talking and falling silent when he walked by. Not just him; anyone that hadn’t, by this time, affiliated themselves with a clique of some kind was frozen out. Not everyone gravitated to groups; some people were okay with their own company. There was a 2003 Zac that kept to himself and did nothing but draw constantly. One of the 2005 Ikes spent his time on the computer, gazing at the screen with something like fervor so people gave him a wide berth. There were the couples that hadn’t been included because they were too busy with each other, finding places to be alone, and absorbed in themselves. Ike thought a few might actually be very serious, including a 2006 Isaac and a 2002 Zac that seemed to exist in some kind of private happy fun land where they talked constantly and held hands, and two heartbreakingly young Taylors, both 98s, that didn’t even know enough to ‘go watch TV’ but slept together on the same bunk and piled up like puppies, fingers threaded, two identical dark blond heads of hair tangled on the love seat while they watched Spongebob. By some agreement all of them had been excluded, too, only they hadn’t realized it yet.

And then he got distracted.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“Shit!”

For the second time, The Kid’s dark form sitting up in bed in the dark had scared him spitless but at least this time he hadn’t just jerked off.

Breathing quickly because of his hammering heart he flopped onto the pillow and counted to ten.

“You have to quit that.” He finally sighed.

The Kid laid his chin on his knees, which he held with his arms, and just looked at him.

“Can’t sleep?”

A shake of the head, hair a gray curtain in the dark. “I have bad dreams.”

Ike stared at him in the darkness, a small grey shadow on the bed, the pale hair ghostly.

They didn’t dream. None of the models dreamed. Ike knew about dreams; had read about them and knew what they were supposed to be, but he didn’t do it. He just fell asleep and then woke up. Whatever tweak in the works that made their hair and nails never grow also prevented dreams. Ike thought of the Philip K. Dick novel, about androids dreaming of electric sheep, and of _I, Robot_ , the Asimov short story collection, where the one rogue robot dreamed. He was surprised that the books were even available in the library and wondered what was sadder: that no one realized the implications about their condition, or that someone thought they were all too stupid to figure it out.

“What do you dream?” He whispered.

The Kid didn’t answer for so long Ike almost spoke again but then he said, quietly, “Bad things.”

Ike looked at him for a moment then shifted over on the bed.

The Kid looked at him for a second then his head inclined to the space on the bed, just a tiny area since the beds were singles and Ike was kind of tall.

“It was just a…..”

The Kid was across the bed in a flash, climbing in and huddling in a fetal position faced away from him, as if to take up as little space as possible.

Ike had never slept with anyone in bed for any length of time but he cautiously settled, having to curve around the small, warm body. He could smell shampoo, baby powder, and sleep wafting off the huddled form. His hand found the vulnerable bumps of spine and rubbed, feeling each one like a worry stone. By the third vertebrae down The Kid was breathing deeply, body boneless.

Ike thought he’d be unable to sleep, but he was wrong because the next thing he knew it was morning and The Kid had managed to wedge himself under Ike’s chin, one thin arm flung across Ike’s chest. Ike cleared his throat and The Kid murmured, cuddled into him like he guessed kittens did. Ike finally had to extricate himself enough to go pee and watched The Kid melt all over the warm spot and snuggle into his pillow.

Another of those mystery feelings in his chest stirred, twisting, but good.

He ignored it and went to brush his teeth.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

It became their ritual. After lights out, Ike would fall asleep and then wake up when he felt himself being watched. He’d groggily move over and The Kid would crawl in next to him and Ike would rub his back, still more asleep than awake.

They didn’t discuss it except for one time when Ike asked him if he still had dreams and The Kid nodded, looking up from the book in his hand - Where The Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein.

“What kind of dreams?”

“Good things.” He’d said simply, blue eyes clear.

Ike could live with that.

*~*~*~*~*~~*~*  
_New study shows normal-looking clones may be abnormal_  
_Scientists have found the first evidence to show that even seemingly normal-looking clones may harbor serious abnormalities affecting gene expression that may not manifest themselves as outward characteristics. The findings, reported in the July 6 issue of Science by researchers at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research and University of Hawaii, confirm the previous suspicion that reproductive cloning is not only inefficient, but may actually be unsafe._

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2001-07/wifb-nss070301.php

**~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

A sound woke him up.

Ike blinked in the darkness, still for a second in the silence. He hadn’t dreamt it. It had to have been real and he took in his surroundings in the grayness: the softness of the bed, the mild hum of the AC system, the even breaths of the person cuddled next to him.

He tried to remember what it sounded like but couldn’t. Just a sound that shouldn’t have been there, too loud to ignore, that had pulled him out of sleep.

A thud reverberated outside and Ike looked out the door at nothing, but there was no mistaking it now. Something felt off, wrong, and not just because of the strange sounds, which he’d never heard here. He’d broken out in a cold sweat and his heart, which could sense danger already, had started to trip hammer briskly, echoing in his ears.

The Kid began to stir, making small, disturbed sounds and Ike rubbed his shoulder trying to soothe him when a huge clang deafened the air and The Kid bolted upright so fast he almost took Ike’s teeth out.

“Hey, hey,” Ike tried to be calming as the thin body clutched at his t-shirt and panted, body trembling.

“It’s started.” The whisper was low and scared and Ike kept rubbing his shoulders before what The Kid had said computed.

“What do you mean? What….”

The door flung open and The Kid gave a small sound of distress. Before Ike could move, one of the flunkies staggered in with choppy, unstable movements like he was drunk. A huge hand grasped the door and slid down as he took another unsteady step forward. A dark smear followed the flunkie’s hand as it slid, and Ike caught a glint of silver sticking out of his chest - scissors, his mind finally supplied - before the huge man collapsed on the floor between their beds, his bulk taking up all the space.

They sat there frozen. Ike in horror, The Kid in a silent stillness Ike thought might be shock.

“We have to go,” he mumbled, mostly to say anything, to jumpstart his body into action and get The Kid to safety, which was the only reason Ike was not curled up in a ball rocking back and forth right now.

“Come on, we’ll get help.”

“Too late.” The Kid’s voice was low and Ike tugged harder at him.

“Look, _move_ we have to….”

A beam of light momentarily blinded him and he shoved The Kid behind his back on instinct, shielding his eyes. The Kid had quit the frightened panting but his body quivered and thrummed like a tuning fork, small hands freezing cold as they clutched at Ike’s sleep shirt.

When the spots cleared from his vision he saw 5023 in the doorway holding an industrial grade flashlight, with a 2003 Zac and the weird Ike that did nothing but work on computers all day on either side.

“I told you things would change.”

“What are you doing?” Ike said, still squinting at 5023, noting the way the two models flanked him like sentries.

“Starting the change.” 5023 smiled with just his mouth, teeth gleaming in the grayness like fangs. Ike peered at him and felt the energy radiating off him like heat, the kick of his chin and the proud posture and realized 5023 was getting off on this. The clusterfuck he’d began was just act one, scene one in the 5023 Show, and he didn’t care what kind of shit happened as long as he got his close-up and his opening credits.

“What, like escape? You murdered someone, moron. What do you think you’re doing?” Behind him The Kid had almost plastered himself to Ike’s back; small, ice-cold hands still clenched tightly, the waft of breath moist at Ike’s neck.

“You really are a boring motherfucker, aren’t you?” 5023 inclined his head and studied Ike, his hair settling softly around his shoulders. “You think escaping is the most we can do? We’re already dead. You just don’t know it.”

Fucking fantastic. The asshole had totally gone Koresh on them.

5023 studied them for a minute more then turned to Computer Ike and said, “Tell him.”

Computer Ike blinked a few times and Ike knew 5023 hadn’t prepped him for this, but he finally began talking in a surprisingly deep voice that sounded like it wasn’t used much.

“I’ve been hacking into the company mainframe for six months. There are plans to phase out all 3.0 models and replace them with the 3.5 versions. They started with the serial numbers greater than 6000 and they expect to be done with the transition in another year.”

Behind him The Kid had gone really, really still, the trembling stopped as if he’d quit breathing.

5023 continued as if Ike said go ahead. “They developed version 3.5 two years ago. Everyone from number 5999 and under is going to be reassigned.”

“That means everyone here except your little boyfriend,” 5023 said sweetly.

“You’re crazy,” Ike said, addressing the most important point. He knew each model seemed to take an aspect of the original DNA and magnify it but Jesus Christ. A clusterfuck because no one realized eventually one of the Ikes would turn out to be a computer genius.

“I’m not,” Computer Ike said, and it was the fear in his voice, the desperation that started to run a cold finger of doubt down Ike’s spine. “I wish I was.”

“You are,” Ike insisted calmly, ignoring his apprehension. “Even if that’s true they’d never destroy this much product.” He hadn’t hacked the company records, but he had done some general research on the cost of gene duplication and cloning for profit. It had gotten stupidly expensive because of the laws passed by the last conservative Congress, which allowed astronomical fees for the procedure and enormous taxes for the companies that pushed forward once said Congress was out of power. A business like the one that made them, they had to have millions and millions tied up in product, research, and services.

“What makes you think they’d destroy us?” 5023 asked scornfully.

“Reassigned isn’t refurbished,” Computer Ike continued. “They’re moving the obsolete models overseas. Mostly Thailand, Russia, and Denmark.”

“Those countries aren’t as uptight as here, you know,” 5023 added. “They really like their little boys there.”

“You’re crazy,” Ike repeated in a whisper but he’d broken out in a sweat at the bleak fear in Computer Ike’s eyes.

“Yeah, whatever. Freak out on your own time. We need him now.” 5023 nodded and the Zac model moved towards the bed. The Kid started to pant in fear, fists like vises on Ike’s shirt.

“Back off.” Ike moved in front of The Kid and fixed the Zac with his best withering stare and it slowed him. “What’s your plan?”

“Simple.” 5023 wandered closer to the bed and The Kid shrank away from him, still holding Ike’s shirt so the fabric stretched across his chest. “We’re going to keep all their shiny new toys and destroy one each hour until our demands are met.”

“Demands?” Ike repeated, incredulous. They were dead. They were all so dead, literally or figuratively after this, and 5023 stood there talking about demands like they were real people. The company couldn’t afford this kind of publicity if this got out; of that Ike was sure.

“Yeah, demands. We want a film crew and a total reveal of what goes on here. We also want a promise of safety for everyone in writing and on camera.”

“What do you care?” Ike said scornfully and 5023 shrugged.

“I don’t. That’s what we’re asking for. Stand with us; don’t stand with us. I don’t care.” He stepped up and got close to Ike’s face, the blue eyes alight and fierce.

“But if you think I’m getting sent overseas so some forty-year-old pervert can fuck me for twenty bucks you’re wrong.”

Drama, thought Ike, doggedly hanging on to the sliver of doubt; hanging on to the hope that 5023 had lost his shit and began this as a stage for his own amusement. 5023 must have seen the denial because he stepped back and shrugged a parody of indifference.

“Of course we’re _assuming_ you get to go. The Ts and Zs are the most popular. Everyone knows that. How many Assignments have you been on, anyhow? How many of you do you think they’ll even need?”

Computer Ike had gone ghostly pale and Ike snapped, “He’s talking about you, too, asshole!”

“I’m not going,” Computer Ike said with such finality he wondered where it came from.

Ike wondered if the Zac even spoke. He just stood there watching the exchange, looking kind of bored. Usually these models never shut up, no matter what year.

“We don’t have time. Get him.” 5023 nodded to the Zac, and The Kid’s arms slipped around him frantically, gouging furrows through Ike’s shirt from the fear.

“You can’t…” But the 2003 Zacs were strong, sinewy with muscle, and he pushed away the long arms and kicked at 5023 when he approached them, The Kid’s breath frantic and sobbing in his ear, arms pulling from every direction and the collar of his t-shirt choking him while The Kid was pulled, pulled aside no matter how much Ike fought…

Something plowed into all of them and the arms let them go, The Kid scrambling to him, grabbing around Ike’s abused neck, his whole body shaking. Ike coughed, pulling at the spindly arms so he could breathe. 5023 and the Zac had to get up off the dead flunkie, so Ike was the first one to see the 1998 Zac that had stumbled into the room, eyes huge and face so pale Ike thought he was going to faint right there.

“What the hell are you doing here?” 5023 snarled, turning on him but the little Zac just looked up at him and shivered.

“They killed him. I saw it. There was blood.”

“Who killed who?” 5023 snapped and the little Zac just stared at him. “WHO?” 5023 shook him just once, a quick sharp move with both hands.

“Men…..with….guns….” he stuttered breathing fast.

“Guns?” Computer Ike said in a high, squeaky voice and the little Zac nodded, eyes huge.

“No,” 5023 muttered, “We’re not armed. They wouldn’t.”

“How many flunkies did you kill?” Ike asked, and as if on cue everyone looked at the bloated figure on the floor, the growing puddle of rich dark liquid growing beneath the stark white of his uniform.

“That was an accident,” 5023 said, and Ike just bet. He bet the flunkie accidentally ran into a pair of scissors and got them crammed in his chest.

The little Zac made a distressed noise and tried to pull away from 5023’s grasp.

Computer Ike was staring at 5023 like he’d never seen him before.

“This is fucked up,” Ike said and 5023 rounded on him viciously, teeth bared in a way that reminded Ike of the pictures of small wild animals he’d seen.

“Shut up! I’m getting out of here! What are you going to do? Fuck him until they come and get you?”

Ike hit him.

The punch just happened, a roundhouse strike that caught 5023 on the jaw and left Ike’s hand throbbing as 5023 staggered against the bed. They all stood there looking at each other over the bloated corpse of one of their keepers, alarms and staccato gunfire in the background like a morbid Greek chorus. 5023 tried to find his footing as he held his jaw, blood like lipstick on the perfect bow lips, and Ike moved The Kid behind him with one arm, his hand fisting anew. Satisfaction bloomed darkly in his chest and he almost wished 5023 would hit him back.

The Little Zac broke tail and ran suddenly, and that seemed to snap them all out of the shocked malaise because Computer Ike followed, just eluding 5023’s snarl of protest, dodging past the desperate grab of his fingers.

The Kid almost pulled his arm out of its socket getting him out of there, and then they were running, running in a smoke-filled alien landscape full of screaming boys and the sounds of gunfire.

The Kid kept dragging him along and Ike finally picked him up and ducked them both into a corridor. He couldn’t catch his breath and didn’t know where they were going.

“Where…” he panted but The Kid interrupted him.

“Outside!” His cheeks were pink from running, hair mussed and eyes bright in the shadowed light.

Ike heard the word like real people must hear ‘heaven’ or ‘hell’ - just a concept he’d read about and heard about. They hardly ever went outside. The recreation area had a corner with a rock climbing wall and fake trees and a painted ceiling sky, but no one went ‘outside’ unless they were on Assignment. Even then, they were escorted to and from the door with an armed guard, the surroundings a passing blur of fleeting smells and textures.

“How? I don’t know why they’re shooting… We don’t know…”

“I know!” The Kid dragged him again, back into the fray of smoke and chaos, then down another corridor, in another door, up dark flights of stairs.

Ike had no idea where they were. Or what The Kid knew or how, but he ran, muscles burning then screaming, lungs on fire and The Kid just kept on like one of those Energizer bunnies from the old commercials.

Just as Ike was about to give up and stop, they burst through a door and an assault of smells overwhelmed him, rich and frightening. Humidity, smoke, some kind of rubber, just OUTSIDE and he peered out at what looked like a huge rooftop, green grass and black vehicles beyond an inky blanket of stars above.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw the first figure in black holding an automatic rifle climb over the wall, and he stepped in front of The Kid, flattening them against the building. They crept over the sides, dozens of them, and behind him The Kid had begun the scared shaking again, hands clutching Ike tight. Why hadn’t they hid? Why hadn’t they… but it was too late now for second guesses. A deafening whapping sound filled the air and a helicopter came into sight, blades slicing the air and a strobe light washing everything in false daylight.

The Kid tugged on his shoulder frantically, over and over, saying his name, and Ike turned, still trying to protect the smaller body with his, holding the frail shoulders with both hands. The Kid’s hair floated around him like a halo, backlit by the lights and his eyes pleaded, his hand clutched him tight.

“Do we love?”

“What?” Ike said over the din of the helicopter, but he’d heard.

“Do we love?” The Kid repeated, eyes brilliant blue in his flushed, pretty face.

Ike stared at him, blinking. He wanted to give him this, to make it better even as the figures crept closer and closer and he couldn’t. He wasn’t programmed that way. “I don’t know.” He whispered, a strange hitch in his voice, strange burning in his eyes.

The Kid hugged him fiercely and Ike held him back, tears falling down his face, his nose clogged.

He’d never cried before.

“I know,” The Kid whispered in his ear and Ike closed his eyes.

“Go back in and hide,” he whispered.

Then pushed him away and ran towards the light.

*~*~*~*

EPILOGUE

_Vergennes, VT. (AP)- FBI officials are investigating the discovery of more than a two dozen bodies found in an underground complex after a fire consumed a multimillion dollar compound belonging to biotechnology giant The Madech Corporation. A fire swept through the company’s Addison County facility early Friday morning, and there are eyewitness reports that county firemen and rescue vehicles were kept from the fire by a road block manned by a group of individuals dressed in black and holding automatic weapons. Eyewitness reports state that firefighters were threatened with violence when they attempted to break the barricade because, as one firefighter stated, “We could hear gunshots and screaming coming from the buildings.”_

_Approximately ten young boys, ages twelve to twenty-six, survived the blaze and are in protective custody in area hospitals. Reports that they are all genetically engineered clones are as of yet unfounded. Medical personnel report that many of the boys appear to be in shock and are being tightly guarded. Three are in critical condition due to smoke inhalation and gunshot injuries. Hospital administrators have no plans for a press conference about the patients but a confidential source claims to have witnessed several hospital personnel faint, start to cry, and become otherwise agitated upon viewing of the young boys, and access to them is now restricted to male RNs and essential medical associates. None of the boys, either living or deceased, have been positively identified._

_What has been confirmed by FBI officials is that the group barring entrance to the compound in the dark hours of Friday morning was hired by The Madech Corporation itself and, at press time, many member of that group have requested legal representation._

_In an astounding coincidence an email was sent to several major newspapers and news stations at one a.m. Friday morning, including MSNBC and CNN, containing allegations of illegal DNA replication, underage prostitution, and questionable appropriation of funds by Madech Corporation CEOS, including Michel Vorhilon, Chief Executive Officer. An attachment to the email included company memos signed by Vorhilon, encrypted files, and records of plans to take part of the operation overseas._

_International Law prohibits the transportation of minors to foreign countries for the purposes of prostitution, and US statutes prohibit the usage of DNA replication for unethical purposes._

_Madech Corporation stock has dropped steeply minutes after the opening NASDAQ and continues to plummet._

June 2007


End file.
